


Not Just An Experiment

by somuchforbaggles



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel in the Bunker, Human!Castiel - Freeform, M/M, POV Castiel, boy were we wrong, written when we thought ezekiel was alive and good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 00:35:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somuchforbaggles/pseuds/somuchforbaggles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel kissed Dean without thinking about it, nor its repercussions. Sam unconsciously gives his advice through the angel possessing him, and then Dean wants to <i>talk</i>. Cas isn't sure whether it's the singular worst or best day of his human life so far.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Just An Experiment

Dean planted his hands firmly on Cas's chest and pushed, hard.

"The hell, Cas?" he spat, the ghost of the kiss Castiel had just given him haunting his lips. Part of Dean wanted to let it linger awhile longer, another wanting to salt and burn it out of existence. The former won out as he watched Cas stumble back with guilt clouding the newly-expressive features.

Cas gave a small shake of his head. "Dean, I -" he started, but Dean stormed past him, shunting his shoulder with a force that once would have had no effect on his vessel. No, his body. It was his _body_ now. Castiel only felt sadness. He knew that the shoulder Dean had used was the one still recovering from Abaddon's dislocation, and though it was in its rightful place again, there was a purpling bruise that travelled to his collarbone that Castiel couldn't help grimacing at. Dean always managed to hurt himself when he tried to hurt others.

In a strange daze, Cas sunk down in a chair and put his head in his hands. It had just seemed  _right_  to kiss Dean then, after Dean had given him a brief tour of the rooms he hadn't seen when he was last in the bunker, because _'you're family, so you get to see our secret dungeon'_ , or something like that. Dean's lips were so intriguing that when they moved they deserved all his attention, the words forming on them less important than how they formed. Cas liked to think that he would have seen the whole bunker sooner if Sam had not been so ill, or if Dean hadn't been so angry with him.

And now Dean was angry with him once more. It was a feeling he was used to, but it stung nonetheless.

A pair of large feet appeared in his periphery, almost startling him. So that was what that was like. "Sam?" Castiel wearily enquired, waiting to be berated for his stupidity regarding Dean's mouth.

"Sam is currently asleep," a smooth voice declared.

"Oh," Cas frowned, looking up to meet a stoic man with an unblinking gaze in the guise of the younger Winchester. "Ezekiel. How are you healing?"

“Well, thank you. I see you are nearly as uncomfortable as Dean with my possession of Sam,” Ezekiel said, pulling out a chair and seating himself next to Castiel. “But that is not what is predominantly troubling you, is it?”

Cas huffed what he thought might be a bitter laugh. “You could say that. Though I am not entirely happy with the issue of Sam's consent. I hope you understand, brother.” Ezekiel nodded knowingly, and Cas sighed before continuing, “I kissed Dean.”

Ezekiel nodded again, this time more solemnly. “And Dean did not take well to your affection.”

“How did you know?”

“Dean will not admit to the fact that he loves his brother. I doubt if he will ever admit to returning your feelings.”

“You say 'admit' as though you know that he does,” Cas said morosely, his eyes downcast.

With a tilt of his head, Ezekiel softly said, “Sam has an inclination that he may, but does not think it will ever amount to anything.”

Cas's head snapped up, and as he held Ezekiel's discerning gaze, he slowly asked, “Would Sam ever be...accepting of it, if it were to amount to something?”

“I believe he may need some time to adjust, but so long as you make his brother happy, then he will be content,” said Ezekiel matter-of-factly, as though Sam had thought about this situation a hundred times before, had given them his hypothetical blessing if ever their long stares and unsaid feelings came to fruition. Sam's acceptance mattered more than anything, but he was undeserving of it.

“Sam is far too kind,” Cas said thickly. With anger and frustration lacing through it, he added, “After everything I have done to the world, to Heaven, to Dean, to _him_ , how could he even think that I could make anyone happy, let alone his brother, whom he reveres above all else?”

“Because Sam Winchester is a good man.”

“You are...you are not wrong, brother,” Cas mused, remembering the days when he thought otherwise because of the blood that eagerly ran through Sam's willing veins. Then, he didn't understand. He wasn't equipped to even try to comprehend why Sam might do such abominable things, but now Castiel knew that it was because of Sam's good intentions. Drinking demon blood, killing Lilith, saying 'Yes' to Lucifer...whenever Sam ended up breaking the world a little more, it was always for what he thought was the greater good.

Castiel could relate to that.

“If Sam were here now, what would he suggest I do?”

His brother's eyes flitted away from him for a second as he scanned Sam's sleeping mind for the answer. “I suspect that Sam would tell you to leave Dean be for the while, let him process what happened between the two of you.”

“And you, Ezekiel? What do you suggest I do?” asked Castiel, unsure he could deal with leaving Dean or himself to stew in his own juices any longer. At least, he hoped he was using that metaphor correctly.

“I suggest you bring him around, as soon as possible,” Ezekiel said almost immediately. “I am uncertain as to how Sam deals as well as he does with the two of you and the tension of your frissons.”

Cas gave a short, shaking laugh and wiped his palms down his face until they settled in a steeple under his chin. “I think I will go to him and apologise. Though whether that will happen, I don't know. I may get another urge to kiss him.”

“Restraining from urges is part of being human, Castiel. But also remember that acting on them is too.” Sam's hair fell in his and Ezekiel's face as the angel leant forward to fix him with a penetrating gaze.

Ezekiel was right. Cas would just have to play it by ear. He nodded and stood, thanking his brother before determinedly striding out of the room, rounding the corner so tightly he almost fell when he bumped into the exact man he was looking for.

“Dean,” he breathed as he was held upright by a pair of strong hands on either shoulder.

“Cas,” Dean firmly said, “We have to talk.”

Castiel almost thought Dean was going to take hold of his hand with the way his fingers trailed down his arm, but they stopped on his elbow as Cas caught a glimpse of pink rising beneath the freckles on his friend's face. Dean slid his other arm around Cas's shoulder as he steered him into one of their many studies and sat him down in an armchair, almost sitting in the one opposite but electing to stand just before his ass hit the leather seat.

Dean ran a hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck, all while avoiding Cas's intent stare. Just as Cas opened his mouth to break the silence, Dean halted him by raising his palm as a makeshift stop sign. “When I said 'We have to talk', I meant that I’m gonna talk to you, and you're gonna listen. Capiche?”

Uncertain as to whether he was expected to verbally answer, Cas nodded.

“Okay, good to know,” Dean said with a shake of his head and a smile creeping on his lips. Was it good to know because then Dean wouldn't have to hear Castiel talk about how much he admired him, how much he wanted to kiss him again? Was he still standing so he could easily make a quick get-away, or to be as far away from Cas as possible while he rejected him?

Dean started five different sentences as he tried to say them in five different poses, one of which was leaning on the armrest of the chair with his hips at an amusingly jaunty angle, and finally succeeded when he sighed and sat down, giving a warning grunt to the creaking leather. He rested his elbows on his thighs and inclined his body towards Castiel's, meeting his gaze at last.

“Look,” he started, scrunching his eyes up as though wincing at his upcoming words, which did not give Cas any hopeful feelings about them. “Don't get me wrong. I mean, I don't have anything against the gays or whatever, so it's cool if you are...but – I’m not gonna be your...your experiment, okay? Even if you're not gay, it doesn't matter. I get it, you're trying out different things, you're finding yourself as a human, and not as a billion-year-old angel. You're trying to catch up with everyone else, you're doing in a month what they've done in thirty years.”

He looked to Cas for confirmation to continue, and softly did so upon receiving a weak nod from the suddenly pale man. “I guess what I’m trying to say here, is...you don't just kiss your guy friends like that, you know, to see what it's like. Like, we can take you to a club, and you can kiss all the dudes you want, just don't...don't kiss me, okay?”

Castiel frowned and tilted his head, a trait that had not been lost with his wings, and said, “May I speak now?”

“Sure, man,” Dean said, clapping his hands together and jumping ever so slightly at the metallic echo it made in the small room. It reminded Castiel of the times that he would appear to Dean, and Dean would try so hard to hide his surprise. As an angel he had found it hard to place what the emotion was that he felt whenever it happened, and now he was human the feeling had increased tenfold. He was _endeared_ to Dean in those moments, and now it was happening all over again.

The revelation of the name of the feeling gave him the courage to confess the true intentions that Dean had so painfully misunderstood.

“I didn't kiss you to confirm or deny whether I was attracted to men,” Cas slowly began, “I kissed you because...well, I wanted to kiss you.”

Dean swallowed. “See, that's the thing, Cas, you can't just kiss people because you _want_ to -”

“Why not?” he indignantly interrupted. “Isn't that the entire point of kissing someone? Because you want to?”

“But you gotta restrain yourself! You can't just kiss anyone you want, just because you want to! You wouldn't go kiss someone in the street, would you?”

“No, because they would not be you!”

Dean stared at him, his mouth agape, and Castiel took the beat of silence to ponder upon whether it had really been wise to blurt the truth out. Saying things in the heat of the moment was something he had to get used to, but what better way to get used to it than to throw himself in the deep end of the pool of complication that was his and Dean's relationship?

“Cas, are you...? Are you saying wha – what I think you're saying?” Dean stuttered, frozen in place by his locked muscles, hands still clasped together.

Quietly, Cas replied, “I wanted to kiss you because I am attracted to you. Not as an experiment or because my human urges need to be controlled, nor even just because you are a man, but because you are _Dean._ Plus, your lips are very distracting,” he added, hoping to lighten the mood with a good-natured comment, but it just sounded...lustful. Which, Castiel supposed, he was.

“I knew you weren't listening to me earlier,” mumbled Dean, unable to look Cas in the eye yet again. “Thing is, Cas, is that...well, I’m not into guys, and -”

With that half sentence, Castiel's heart crumbled into tiny pieces. Even with his foresight into how he might be refused, he couldn't have foreseen the way it would feel to have his chest seemingly ripped open and hacked at with blunt words. Stopping Dean before he could continue, Castiel cut in, “I understand. I'll...I'll leave you to the research you were doing before you gave me 'the grand tour'. I must apologise profusely,” he said as he stood, picking at imaginary lint on his trousers.

“No, Cas – wait!” Dean cried, grabbing Cas's hand and pulling him back down into his chair. Oddly enough, however, he didn't let go once he had succeeded in making Cas stay put.

Miserably, Cas glanced at Dean through his lashes, trying to ignore the sparks in the pores of the place between his thumb and forefinger where Dean was rubbing his own thumb.

“Let me finish,” Dean said. “What I was _going_ to say before you overreacted, was this: I’m not into guys, and I’m not really good at the whole relationship thing, okay? Hey, look at me!”

Castiel's eyes had been stinging, and he hadn't trusted them not to embarrass him, but upon Dean's command, he looked at him. Dean took his other hand, and now they were linked through their fingers, the way Cas had seen so many lovers joined through centuries. With the steady stroke of Dean's thumbs, his heart started to piece itself together with something that felt a lot like acceptance.

“ _But,_ ” Dean emphasised as he carried on, “you're Cas. You're...well, you are a guy, but it's like you're so much more than what you got down there, you know? I don't care about that. We'll work it out. Because if you're not just in it to gain more human experience, then I wanna...I wanna make a go out of it. Out of us. Because I like you. A lot. Like, a  _lot_  a lot. And with this, you don't have to worry about knowing nothing, because I’m in the same boat, man.”

A tear betrayed Castiel, and the trail of it burnt as it ran down his cheek.

“Hey,” breathed Dean as he let go of Cas's long fingers to cup his face and wipe the hot tear away, “don't you go crying on me, not when I don't know whether they're happy tears or not.”

Castiel gave a short burst of laughter, eliciting a soft smile from Dean, and sniffed. It was strange; he was only aware of humans having a running nose if they had a cold. Thankfully, the rest of the tears had only clung to his lashes, the light reflecting off them in a way that reminded Cas of constellations on a clear night.

“I would like to 'make a go' out of us too,” he said, his chest swelling when he saw stars twinkling in Dean's eyes that weren't from the droplets on his lashes.

“Awesome,” Dean whispered as he leant in to press a kiss to Cas's lips, smiling against them when he was eagerly kissed back. He pulled back to rest their foreheads together, their lashes giving each other butterfly kisses until they were both starry-eyed and aching for each other's mouths again.


End file.
